On this October Sunday, the Revised Common Lectionary offers a reading about gratitude. The story from Luke is one of my favorites — and appropriately appears on the weekend that Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving!
The text reminds us that harvest season is upon much of the Northern hemisphere, and we’ve entered autumn, a season of gratefulness.
Here, at The Cottage, we’re going to pay attention to this important spiritual practice with a month-long series coming up in NOVEMBER. Instead of doing an Advent calendar in December as we did last year (there will still be Advent posts — just not every day), we are going to take a four-week journey exploring gratitude including reflections from my book Grateful, gratitude prompts, some video lessons, and poetry. Together, we’ll remind each other of a world of gifts that call forth gratitude.
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Luke 17:11-19
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."
After my book Grateful was released in 2018, I spent almost two years speaking and preaching about gratitude. One of the most frequently asked questions at those events came from grandparents: “How do I get my grandchildren to write thank you notes?”
At first, I replied by offering tips on forming spiritual practices with children. That never seemed quite satisfactory. During one Q&A, a nice grandmother bemoaned that her grandchildren never said thank you for any of the gifts she sent them — and she was quite hurt by their lack of gratitude.
On a whim, I asked her a follow-up question, “If your grandchildren never sent you a thank you note, would you stop sending them gifts? Would you insist they return your presents?”
She laughed, “I’m tempted. . .” Her grandparent-peers laughed. “But of course I’d still send them gifts. And I certainly wouldn’t take them back!”
“So,” I replied, “you don’t send gifts to get notes? Why do you send gifts?”
“Because I love them,” she replied. “Thank you notes are nice, but gifts aren’t contingent on them.”
And that’s today’s lesson from Luke.
In this story, Jesus heals ten lepers. They are healed. All of them. But only one went back to Jesus and said thank you. He’s an outsider, a Samaritan, perhaps one not accustomed to being the recipient of a divine gift like healing, a spiritual blessing conferred in this instance by priests. For whatever reason, this one leper didn’t take the gift for granted and choose to return to Jesus to express his gratitude. In response, Jesus thanks him — and sends him on his way.
This is a rich story for what it says about Jesus and the Samaritan leper. And it is an intriguing one for what it doesn’t say about the nine lepers who didn’t return to say thank you.
There’s no indication that their lack of gratitude affected the gift.
Jesus didn’t take the gift back. He didn’t didn’t threaten or warn the nine. He didn’t send the disease to reinfect the ingrates. He didn’t direct the temple authorities to arrest them and return them to the leper colony.
Saying thank you — or not — had nothing to do with the gift.
Ultimately, this story is about the generosity of God. The gift of healing is free. Christian theology calls that grace — a gift with no strings attached, a gift that comes from the nature of God, a gift of love. God is the Ever-Gifting One. Extravagantly, endlessly, without condition or expectation of response. All of creation is a gift; every day we are surrounded by gifts. The gifts never stop, are never taken back, not in any way contingent on the recipient. The gifts just are.
Only sometimes do we notice. Only occasionally do we turn back, fall on our knees with gratitude, and say thank you.
However, gratefulness isn’t what heals us. At the end of the story, Jesus says it is faith — meaning TRUST (not “belief” or “doctrine,” but a disposition of “trust”) that makes us well.
In effect, gratitude is an expression of trust. Sometimes, we take gifts for granted because we trust that they will always come. Perhaps not sending a thank you note is an odd expression of that confidence — we trust the dependable, loving grandmother to never forget a holiday or birthday. But, sometimes, a gift is so enormous, so unexpected that we do notice. And that’s when we turn around, fall on our knees in wonder to offer thanks, finally understanding that gracious gifts surround us every day and have always attended our way.
That’s when gratitude can change everything — it transforms our ability to see the giftedness of our lives, to stop taking the great generosity of the Gifter for granted, and to freely respond with attentive trust.
You don’t ever have to say thank you. God’s love never ceases; the gifts never end. And yet, it is good to notice how extraordinary it truly is — this gracious love, this gifted life. Trusting that, being attentive to it, makes us whole.
INSPIRATION
If you find yourself half naked
and barefoot in the frosty grass, hearing,
again, the earth's great, sonorous moan that says
you are the air of the now and gone, that says
all you love will turn to dust,
and will meet you there, do not
raise your fist. Do not raise
your small voice against it. And do not
take cover. Instead, curl your toes
into the grass, watch the cloud
ascending from your lips. Walk
through the garden's dormant splendor.
Say only, thank you.
Thank you.
— Ross Gay, “Thank You”
Thank you for this day made
of wind and rain and sun and the scent
of old-fashioned lilacs. Thank you . . .
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “In Case I Forget to Say It Enough” (please read the entire poem here)
NEW FEATURE FROM SUBSTACK: Some of you may have noticed a “Listen” button appeared this week on your posts. Substack has introduced a computer-generated text-to-voice feature where you can listen to any post via the Substack app on your phone. It isn’t MY VOICE or an author reading. It is basically an accessibility service (which is a good thing to do!) not a podcast or a Cottage-created product.
Also, the computer doesn’t know how to pronounce my name (it is “Bass” like the fish, not “bass,” aka “base,” like the musical instrument). Nor does it grasp a lot of theological or biblical vocabulary. But, if you’d find it helpful and would like to activate it, you can download the app for your phone by simply clicking on the “Listen” function and following the directions.
SOUTHERN LIGHTS 2023 is back to its regular January schedule!
This coming January, Brian McLaren and I are hosting extraordinary guests including Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, theologian Reggie Williams, and Franciscan sister and scientist Ilia Delio in a weekend festival of reimagining faith in words, for the world, and in context of the cosmos — poetry, theology, and science!
We’re also going to do some live podcasts (pod hosts TBA soon!) and great musicians including the wonderful Ken Medema.
Please join us in Georgia at beautiful St. Simons Island or virtually online. CLICK HERE for info and registration!
A quick personal note:
I’m just back (last night at 5pm) from an extraordinary week in Arizona and I’ve got a very packed schedule upcoming, October 11-16. If you live in North Carolina, I’ll be speaking at Duke’s Goodson Chapel on Wednesday with Elizabeth Schrader in Durham, at Theology Beer Camp with Tripp Fuller and his legions of zesty friends on Thursday-Saturday in Chapel Hill, and at the Church of the Holy Family at one of my favorite congregations on Sunday in Chapel Hill.
Along the way, I’ll be doing some ZOOM events for UCC friends in Wisconsin and Southern New England.
I’d love to see you at any of these events — and I would really appreciate your prayers for strength, insight, and health in this busiest week of my entire year!
Thank you for the encouragement and reminder of the generous goodness of our God who does not punish us for forgetting to say thank you. It’s not easy to keep up with all the blessings and gifts
Writing and sending "thank you" notes nurtures both the recipient and the sender. It likely warms the heart of the one being thanked and, more importantly, it helps to build and cultivate a sense of gratitude in the note-writer which can, over time, pervade and undergird one's outlook on life.